


you were never supposed to leave (i've come home)

by sailingthenightsea



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dad Philza, Dadza, Family Feels, Hurt No Comfort, I'm so sorry, Sleepy Bois Inc Angst, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, This is the worst thing I've ever done, absolutely no happy endings here im sorry, and i'll do what i like, bc i am a horrible person, bc i'm god here, but i stg this is actually really good i'm proud of it, heed the warnings, i love dream but he's the villain here, i started this before the last streams aired, if ur on mobile the emojis translated to the wrong smiley it’s supposed to be like :), no beta we die like all the fucking characters in this fic, no well, okay i fixed the smileys, really im so sorry, sbi family, so it's a What Could Have Happened, so much pain, some bits of canon are flat ignored, takes place after tommy leaves techno, there are FOUR major deaths, there's some comfort but there's too much hurt tbh, title from welcome home son by radical face, tommy tubbo wilbur and techno are brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28930383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailingthenightsea/pseuds/sailingthenightsea
Summary: The Blade has his eyes locked on the place Tommy went under, locks of hair coming loose from its long braid, framing the white bone face in a cheery pink. One hand desperately grips the netherrack wall to keep him from collapsing. Dream can read the grief there, in every line of his body as it gives and sags under the weight like a rotted foundation.Technoblade never screams, never roars, never makes a sound. Instead, he crumbles.His father is there when he does. His father catches him, pulling him as far back from the edge as he can get him. Burned wings wrap around the pig and trembling hands pull the skull from his face, setting it aside. A boy, beneath, he buries his face into his father’s shoulder and sobs.Dream leaves them to their mourning. He is not so cruel as to take that too.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF) (referenced), Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 135





	you were never supposed to leave (i've come home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [URMOTHERSWOMAN](https://archiveofourown.org/users/URMOTHERSWOMAN/gifts).



> i am so sorry oh my god
> 
> the idea came out of nowhere and i knew i had to write it. usually i'm not one for angst and sad endings, but here we are.
> 
> scroll to the end notes if you wanna know who dies before reading
> 
> [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6vXQgX5PH8tmrQsRlO2hXt?si=R5D6NG8TTVm9x6iROxd3bg) is the link to playlist i listened to while writing this
> 
> and good luck!

**☻ ☻ ☻**

The Nether is, as always, oppressively hot. The fight, the audience, the sharp awareness of the danger present, all of this makes it nearly unbearable.

Still, Dream bears it.

He pushes the fight up and up, too far from the portal for anyone to reach them. Every impossible leap he forces Tommy to make, every move designed for the advantage of height and distance from everyone who would clamber after him to help Tommy. It’s easy, really, and Tommy’s relief visibly freezes and twists into horror when he hears Dream’s delighted laughter as Tubbo stumbles through the portal, tripping over his own feet and slicing his palm open on the edge of the portal when he catches himself. He doesn’t even glance down as the blood drips from his fingers.

The boy looks up at them determined, then he bolts, following too far behind up the trail Dream had left for him.

Then the Blade emerges from the violet curtain, reeking of grace and power. His eyes are dark, visible through the sockets of the piglin skull he dons as his own mask. Dream tilts his head and sloppily salutes the man, grinning, before he turns back to the first of the brothers he’s to face tonight.

Swords clash. Swing, block, parry. The sound of netherite against diamond rings in his ears. The power behind Dream’s swing forces Tommy to step back. One and another and another. Tommy loses more ground and for the first time he seems to understand the weight of it. Every step he takes brings him closer to where Dream wants him.

The pig climbs, shouting for Tubbo to wait. The ghost has joined him, hands and chest stained blue, a stark change from the suffocating red of their surroundings.

A sword falls and Tommy is left defenseless.

In a few quick movements, Dream has the front of Tommy’s shirt clenched in his fist. The boy is staring him down, toes barely scraping on the edge of the cliff, lava bubbling below. He doesn’t beg, though, just keeps his gaze level and unforgiving.

“You can kill me, Dream, but you can’t stop this war. There will always be someone left to challenge you.” A shit-eating, blood-stained grin faces down Dream’s ever-smiling mask.

“But,” Dream says, pleasantly, “I _can_ kill you.”

Tommy falls. Tommy burns. Tommy doesn’t scream and that’s almost disappointing.

Tubbo does scream, though, not twenty feet behind him. He doesn’t worry about him yet, listening as he crumbles, knees and palms colliding with the netherrack. Dream’s gaze flits over the small crowd scattered below them, the pig, the ghost, and the father too, desperate but hopeless. Too far away and far too late.

 _Devastated_.

No one came for _him_ , he thinks distantly, and then he pretends that the wound doesn’t bleed.

Wilbur’s ghost doesn’t look away from the lava, eyes searching, like he's waiting for something—or looking for it—a miracle, his brother to be magically saved.

The Blade has his eyes locked on the place Tommy went under, locks of hair coming loose from its long braid, framing the white bone face in a cheery pink. One hand desperately grips the netherrack wall to keep him from collapsing. Dream can read the grief there, in every line of his body as it gives and sags under the weight like a rotted foundation. That’s two of his brothers, now, dead. Neither one could he save.

Dream turns and his sword rings out as it catches Tubbo’s. It seems that soon only one of Philza’s sons will be left.

 _Nightmare_ slides through the boy’s middle with ease and Dream pulls it free and gives him a gentle shove that sends him, too, into the fiery red sea.

Technoblade never screams, never roars, never makes a sound. Instead, he crumbles.

His father is there when he does. His father catches him, pulling him as far back from the edge as he can get him. Burned wings wrap around the pig and trembling hands pull the skull from his face, setting it aside. A boy, beneath, he buries his face into his father’s shoulder and sobs.

Dream leaves them to their mourning. He is not so cruel as to take that too.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

Disgust curls George’s lips as he takes Dream in. Fear settles like silk on his skin, but he suppresses the shiver. Best to keep weakness to himself. Dream is not known for _mercy_.

“What did you do?” Sapnap asks because George doesn’t. He thinks the answer is obvious enough; Dream is covered in Nether dust and splattered with blood. Far too much for whatever he fought to still be standing.

He walks past them like he hadn’t heard the question at all.

“Dream,” George says, voice hard, angry, giving too much away as always. It makes him stop, though, and George knows the answer to the question is far more important than whatever game Dream will play with him and his foolish heart when he next grows bored.

He turns, the mask aimed at George, and he tilts his head, curious.

“You don’t get to use my portal,” George says. “And you don’t get to walk through my house covered in blood without explaining yourself and whatever mess might decide to follow you through.”

Dream seems to consider this for a moment. When he speaks, there is a smile in his voice that makes George feel sick and Sapnap shiver. “I took care of a _pest problem_ , George. The way back was blocked by a sad little pig and its broken bird or else I wouldn’t have had to _impose_.” The last word carries enough emphasis to make it clear that Dream could do _whatever he pleased_.

“Technoblade and Philza,” Sapnap breathes, then he looks frantically at George. “He killed Tommy, George. They’re going to think we were involved if we don’t-”

Dream walks away, bored, uninterested in the lives he sets aflame with his vendettas, with his games.

“We fought for you once,” George says and god he’s so tired and he knows Dream can hear it because he falters. “You promised power, riches, _freedom_ , but that’s not why we followed you, Dream.” He doesn’t turn, but George doesn’t need him to. “We fought for you because we _believed_ in you. Once, before all this, we were friends, weren’t we?”

The door swings shut as he steps out into the inky dark.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

He finds what he’s looking for as they help each other out of the water like when they were little and Phil took them all to the ocean. That memory is blue and gold, cool water and salt in the air. Wilbur remembers bright laughter, playful wrestling, his skin tight from the start of a sunburn.

It is not blue here. There is no peace in the breeze.

Their hands and eyes glow orange red and bright, but they smile and laugh like Wilbur hasn’t heard since all of this first began. Both boys want to run up the path in the mountain to Techno and Phil, but Wilbur remembers the grief that wrecked his father’s and his brothers’ faces when they’d first seen him Blue. The boys are Red, but he doesn’t think Techno and Phil will see the difference as a good thing.

Red always seems to bring sadness with it. The memories Wilbur doesn’t touch are all soaked in Red—different from his little brothers’ Red, but Red all the same.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

“I was supposed to protect him,” his son says, voice hoarse and shaking. “I was supposed to protect both of them.”

“No, no, no, Technoblade, this _was not your fault_.”

“If I hadn’t- If- God, Phil, I was so angry at him. I was _angry_ at him.”

“Techno,” he begins gently.

“I left them, I left him, Dad, I _left him_.” His voice cracks and Philza wonders if there is anything left unbroken.

“Shhhhh, it’s gonna be okay,” he soothes, lying and Technoblade knows it.

“It’s never going to be okay again. Wilbur’s gone. Tommy and Tubbo are _gone_.”

“I know,” he says, “I _know_.”

“How are we- What are we gonna do, Dad? What are we supposed to _do_?”

Philza props his chin on the top of his son’s head and his eyes harden as he looks at the cliff’s edge above them. “ _Kill him_.”

**☻ ☻ ☻**

Wilbur keeps the boys out of sight the whole trudge home and Philza’s grateful for it. He’s not ready to face another two sons that he _failed_. The one barely holding himself up on his feet in front of him is enough.

He thinks of kinder nights, years ago. When the boys were all still young and the world didn’t come knocking on his door with the broken and bleeding bodies of his sons.

There are no bodies this time, he thinks and then he retches into the clean white snow. Techno stops to make sure he’s alright (he’s not, oh god, he’s never going to be again), but Philza waves him off.

He doesn’t go. He looks so _young_.

Philza thinks of kinder nights, of bedtime stories and forehead kisses and four little boys he swore to protect with his life.

He had failed three of his sons, Wilbur more than anyone, but he wouldn’t bury- he wouldn’t lose Techno too. He couldn’t lose him too. He _wouldn’t_ , he wouldn’t fail again.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

It feels very suddenly like there’s no air in his house when the door closes behind him and Phil. The whole place is dark, torches and lanterns burned out or left unlit.

He’d left the front door standing open just a few hours earlier. Tubbo had sent the message, begging for help, saying Tommy was in danger, and Techno had run as fast as he could.

 _Wasn’t fast enough_ , Dream’s voice taunts in his head and Techno roars and slams his fist into the stone wall again and again and again, the pain a welcome relief from the gaping pit in his chest and the constant sinking stone of the truth in his stomach. The skin of his knuckles splits open and the delicate bones of his hands fracture, but he doesn’t care, doesn’t stop. He hits until Philza’s arms wrap around him, pinning his own to his sides. His father's voice is distant, but the familiar soothing cadence brings him back to himself, settling him into his own skin.

He doesn’t remember falling to the floor, but he must have because he’s so exhausted, suddenly, he’s so heavy. Phil holds him, but he doesn’t cry, not again, he just tries to breathe steadily and find himself under the mess of pain and grief that has buried him.

All of him feels empty now, but rage will come with the sunrise. And when it does, when it does, there will be _hell to pay_.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

“Where is he,” he growls, not a question, a command. Philza stands off to the left just behind him, wings outstretched menacingly.

The False King doesn’t flinch or cower. _Toothpick_ rests comfortably on Techno’s shoulder.

George sighs, “I don’t know.” He grips the doorway like it’s the only thing holding him up. He seems older. “He came through last night, but he didn’t stick around long.” He scrubs a hand over his face, pushing the goggles up onto his head. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. For what he did.”

Technoblade’s grip on the carved wooden handle tightens. “You knew?” Philza asks when all his son can do is growl, baring his teeth, and imagine killing the man in front of them, leaving his entrails strewn out in the yard, planting his head on a pike.

“Not until after,” George answers. “I don’t fight for Dream anymore, Technoblade. You won’t find him here.”

There is a moment of tense consideration. “No, I suppose I won’t.” Techno grins and it’s cold and cruel. “But I found _you_.”

George’s face expression twists in confusion and then blanks and drops in fast dawning horror as he scrambles backwards into his house. He tries to slam the door, but Techno catches it with _Toothpick_ and tears it off its hinges.

To Techno’s slight disappointment, George has vanished from the room. He’d hoped for a fight, something to focus the wildfire rage in his chest, but the False King is, apparently, a coward. Prey to be chased down. _If it is a chase he wants_ , Techno thinks, and drags _Toothpick_ along the wooden floors as he searches.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

He pushes the bed against the door when he reaches his own room. Technoblade and Philza are inevitably going to find him, he knows that, he’s not stupid.

All he needs is a little bit of time. The radio is in a barrel-turned-bedside-table because while he never planned to used it again after-

 _Say it. Say you_ hate _me._

-he couldn’t force himself to get rid of it.

“Geooorge,” calls Techno, sing-song in a mockery of Dream. The sound is muffled, far enough away that George risks turning on the radio, hoping against everything that Dream will hear it, that he didn’t crush it like Sapnap did weeks ago in a fit of rage.

“Dream, I know- I know _everything_ happened, but the Blade is here, Philza’s here and I’m trapped and I- god, please, just- fuck, I’m scared, Dream. They’re gonna kill me. I need your-”

**☻ ☻ ☻**

The transmission cuts out, static flooding the channel and his mind. They went after George. Of _course_ , they went after George—how could he have missed something so _obvious_? He took something they cared about, so they’re threatening something of his.

He’s moving before he realizes it, slipping through violet curtains and holding _Nightmare_ out to his side as he moves through the suffocating heat to the same portal he’d crossed through just hours ago.

George is on his knees in front of the pig, hands bound and eyes locked onto Dream. The edge of _Toothpick_ is hooked around his throat, an obvious threat if the rest of the scene weren’t.

“Hello, Dream,” Techno greets, voice dripping with false pleasantry.

“Pig,” Dream returns cheerfully. “And you brought your little bird, too! How _delightful_.”

The Blade growls and takes a fistful of George’s hair, wrenching it further up and pressing the pick harder against his skin. Dream feels his hackles rise. George belongs to _him_.

“ _What_ ,” he begins, voice low and threatening, “do you want with him?”

The pig laughs. “With _him_?” he asks, disgust clear in his voice. “Nothing. With you, on the other hand, I want plenty.” He runs his fingers gently through George’s hair. “Namely, I want you to suffer. And then, I want to watch you die, slowly.”

By the time _Nightmare_ is up, ready to attack, the tip of _Toothpick_ is buried in George’s chest. Dream lunges, but the bird gets in the way. He fights well, but then red is soaking his clothes and the pig is on top of Dream roaring.

Blood is splattered across his skull mask and Dream grins, all teeth, behind his own. He rolls them, changes the balance of power, blade over the exposed skin of the pig’s throat, ready to bleed him dry.

The broken little bird drags him off Technoblade and he narrowly dodges a killing blow from the man. Dream laughs, but George makes a soft, pained sound and Dream comes crashing back to himself. Before Philza can take his head off, he has an enderpearl in hand, jumping to George, holding onto him and jumping them both miles away.

They land in a field of wildflowers. Dream sits with his legs folded and George’s head in his lap.

He doesn’t know… what to do. He pulls the mask off and it falls carelessly somewhere to his left. He’s exposed, but he can’t bring himself to really care.

George chuckles at the lost expression, but it catches and turns to a wet cough that sprays a mist of red on his face.

“George,” Dream starts, but he’s interrupted.

“You came,” George murmurs and Dream realizes that he really hadn’t expected him to.

“You called,” Dream replies.

George smiles and then George stops breathing and Dream doesn’t move again for hours.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

He buries him among the flowers.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

He thinks of Hector, of Achilles. He fancies himself a damned hero and he walks to the blackened remains of his own Troy.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

His son’s hands are steady as they clean and stitch up his side. The former king, George’s house was well stocked and they’d raided his supplies before getting out and finding a shallow cave to lick their wounds before they could make the trip home to plan their next move.

Part of Phil wants to tell Techno that he can stop, that they can disappear, go somewhere far away and learn to know peace.

But he knows his boy and he knows that he won’t stop until either he or Dream was dead. He won’t risk the fight, won’t risk Technoblade shutting down on him and trying to do this alone.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly and Philza _aches_ for this boy who used to cry when he scraped his knees until he kissed them better.

“Not your fault,” Phil replies and he feels like it will be a mantra, repeated for the rest of their lives. He thinks Technoblade is just as likely to stop blaming himself as Philza is. Like father, like son.

Wilbur appears through a shimmer in the air, the first time he’s been visible since the- since- _since_. The boys don’t follow him, but Philza can _feel_ them there, just out of reach. Wilbur is always cold, but the boys carry a sickening heat.

He doesn’t say anything, but he’s holding a small, slightly raggedy bouquet of cornflowers. _Blue_ , Philza thinks and feels something inside of him break open.

Techno makes a noise of protest when he shifts, moving to reach his arms out to his eldest son. Wilbur crosses the room in three quick strides and buries himself into his father’s unhurt side, blue flowers clutched in his fist and brushing Phil’s cheek.

“How are they?” Techno asks, stilted and pained.

Wilbur looks at him from over Phil’s shoulder. “Red,” he answers, and Phil knows that’s supposed to mean something, but there’s so much that doesn’t connect with Wilbur now, things he says that make no sense to anyone but him. “But they laugh,” he says softly, smiling a little. “They laugh all the time again. It sounds like Blue.”

He flinches just a little when a tear drips off Phil’s chin into his hair. _Rain_ , Phil thinks and then, _this is the eye of the storm._ Then he wipes his face dry because the last thing he wants is to hurt Wilbur again. Sometimes, it seems that’s all he’s capable of—hurting his boys, letting his boys get hurt.

“You did your best,” Technoblade says softly, genuinely, watching his face carefully.

Philza closes his eyes. “I tried,” he says and his voice cracks and shatters like glass, like ice as he plunges into the dark.

“We’re loved,” Wilbur says, looking up at him, face clear and bright, like when he was a child. Every time Philza closes his eyes, he sees Wilbur begging him, he sees Tommy and Tubbo falling, he sees four little boys playing war in the garden.

Technoblade smoothes the bandage over Philza’s side and then he just _sags_ against him. He’s exhausted, he’s still so young, though he likes to think he’s all grown up.

Philza thinks of a boy curled up against his side after a nightmare. He thinks of nights where all four boys climbed under the safety of his wings, trusting that there they would be safe from the dark.

He thinks he fell with Tommy and he hasn’t stopped falling since.

He thinks that Wilbur wasn’t the only one he killed that day, but he still gets up every morning and forces his lungs to breathe in.

Philza thinks of four boys he found and called his own, he thinks of four invisible contracts he signed with soft promises and sealed with feather-light kisses against their hair. This pain was something he opened his arms to years and years ago when a little boy with razor sharp tusks and tangled pink hair followed him through the woods back to his farm, where Philza had knelt down and told him not to be scared.

It is his burden to bear.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

In the morning, Technoblade will leave without waking Philza, making Wilbur swear up and down and on Friend (who had appeared at some point in the room he pretended he hadn’t built for Wilbur) that he will _not_ tell their father where he went.

In the morning, Technoblade will meet Dream in the blackened remains of L’Manburg.

In the morning, Technoblade will put _Toothpick_ through Dream’s skull so many times it will be unrecognizable, save for the shattered porcelain mask ringing the carnage like a halo.

In the morning, the war will be over and he will go home to his father’s arms wrapped tightly around him as they both sink to the floor.

In the morning, a broken little family of five will cling to each other in a tangled mess of desperate limbs, holding onto something they had lost long ago.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

In the morning, there is laughter again, but it _echoes_.

**☻ ☻ ☻**

**Author's Note:**

> MCDs: Tommy, Tubbo, George, and Dream
> 
> just to reiterate, i am so sorry. this is the worst thing i've ever done.
> 
> if you would like to shout at me, please feel free to comment! kudos are also greatly appreciated. the more ppl who kudo, the more ppl who read this and suffer with you! also it's free and makes my entire day :)
> 
> i'm gonna start on some sbi fluff to make up for this asap so i recommend subscribing to my account. haha jk... unless?
> 
> also!! pls lmk what tag you found this under so i know a) what tags to put on my fics and b) what tags to look under for more fics
> 
> hmu on twitter (@sailingwastaken) or tumblr (@sailingthenightsea)!! dm me or send an ask if u wanna talk abt this or if u have any prompts/ideas for fluff that you'd like to see!


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